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Friday, April 11, 2014

I have been looking for my great-grandfather Paul Primas for a long
time. When I started my family history
research for a school project in 6th grade, he had already been gone
for over 50 years.

What I knew about Paul Primas when I began was that he was my grandfather
Oscar Primas’ father and my father’s grandfather. I knew he had a wife who lived for over 20
years past his death. He had five
children, four boys and one girl. I was
told he was from a town called Nekla in what is present day Poland but was
Prussia when he lived there.

I wrote to my grand-uncles who still survived and asked for more
details. There was another son who died
young. Paul’s wife was Emma Natalie Stroschein. They had been married in Prussia before they
made the trip over. Her parents were
Ludwig and Susanna Stroschein. I was never
told anything further about Paul.

Later I learned that Paul and Emma had come to the US in about 1887. They came to Chicago yet three of their
children were born in Wisconsin. Paul died
in Chicago in December 1906 at the age of 46 years old leaving his wife with
five children ranging in age from 18 years old to 9 years old (my grandfather).

Paul Primas' sons: Otto, Fred, Frank and Oscar c.1948

Over the years I have been searching, researching, writing letters and
trying to find out more about Paul Primas.
As a teenager I wrote to the German Consulate to ask how to find records
I was looking for and was told all the records were lost in the war (World War
II) and any that did survive were now behind the Iron Curtain and unavailable. I kept looking and asking.

As more information came on-line, I started to get little hints and
clues. He arrived in Baltimore, not
Ellis Island. He came with his wife Emma
and their son Franz on the ship Köln from Bremen I
found his citizenship was granted in Dunn County Wisconsin, even though his Declaration
of Intent was filed in Cook County. In the
1891 City Directory for Chicago he is listed as a tailor. Based on his children’s birth records, between
1893 and 1897 when he was in Wisconsin he was a laborer in the lumber camps. In the
1900 US Census he and his family are living at 156 North Kedzie in Chicago and
he is listed as a janitor.

In 2012 I decided I needed to go to Poland and try to find out more information about my
elusive great-grandfather Paul. I still
had many questions.